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Thank you for sharing your story. Continuing the geek vibe, I believe the best starting point to make sense of inner workings of incentive systems and rewards
by divan 4y ago
Thank you for sharing your story.
Continuing the geek vibe, I believe the best starting point to make sense of inner workings of incentive systems and rewards is SDT - Self-Determination Theory. It's 70+ yr old theory of motivation in psychology that originated in studies of how external rewards (i.e. tips or bonuses) crowd out intrinsic motivation.
In other words, if we want employees to act friendly to customers - should we design a system of external motivation (rewards and punishements) or design a system that boost intrinsic motivation for this behaviour. For example, SDT has many studies on how different rewards giving patterns affect motivation. As far as I remember, the least detrimental is task-noncontingent rewards (giving "reward" for just "showing up", basically). The most detrimental to motivation is competitive-contingent (give reward to those who outperform others).
- atchoo 4y agoIt sounds insane that you need "rewards and punishments" for one human to be nice to another. Friendliness should be a natural by product of happy people in a good workplace. I'd suggest a different tack, analyse what in the system has led to one person to be unfriendly to another, and solve it without assuming the buck stops with the individual as some type of perfectly free agent in a skinner box. Proper pay, proper healthcare, leaders that lead by demonstration and treat colleagues with respect and a business that does not lead to angry customers by being scummy... are just table stakes for example.